From www.endofsuburbia.com

Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too the suburban way of life has become embedded in the American consciousness.

Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.

But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary. The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia ?

Hosted by Barrie Zwicker. Featuring James Howard Kunstler, Peter Calthorpe, Michael Klare, Richard Heinberg, Matthew Simmons, Mike Ruppert, Julian Darley, Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes, Ali Samsam Bakhtiari and Steve Andrews. Directed by Gregory Greene. Produced by Barry Silverthorn.

DVD BONUS: Includes the vintage short films, In the Suburbs and Destination Earth. Also includes producer and director commentary and edited audio for audiences under 18 years.

Duration: 78 minutes

First Screening in Los Angeles - April 24th

After the discussion on peak oil in North Hollywood, CA (PeakOilAction.org), on April 24th, 10 of the 12 attendees went to a local residence to watch the "End of Suburbia" documentary. There was a consensus that the film was sucessful at portraying the basic realities of oil depletion and the end of modern industrial society. Though some felt that more could have been presented about some of the very serious consequences (such as the possiblity of mass starvation) or that a wider variety of possible actions to take could have been shown, we agreed this was a usefull tool for getting people thinking about this crisis. Some of the attendees suggested that it was probably a wise choice not to present the worst-case or most alarming scenarios because it may have the effect of being too much for many people to handle and put them into a state of denial. As is, this film is already alarming enough to have that effect.

Additional Screenings in the Los Angeles Area Being Planned

The twelve people that attended the peak oil discussion in the park are planning additional screenings. Anyone is welcome to host a screening. Good places for screenings include private residences (invite your friends and family), universities, public libraries and churches. Also, may organizations hold weekly or periodic screenings of important documentaries, and may wish to include this documentary in their schedule.

If you would like to host a screening of "End of Suburbia", please contact eric@peakoilaction.org. We can help you with the planning, promoting and hosting of the screening.

To keep informed on any upcoming screenings or related events, join the PeakOilAction.org newsletter, send an email to subscribe@peakoilaction.org and include your city, state and country.

 

Any 'facts' in this forthcoming fakeumentary---the kind that's made fatass liar Michael Moore a rich white male--will be more twisted than a Stretch Armstrong doll.

The earth is far from running out of oil and more oil is being discovered every day.

Anyway, what do YOU care if suburbia "dies," liberal? You HATE suburbia, which was built with free market wealth and capitalism. You hate values (of any kind) and consider the teachings of Christ averse to whatever flavor-of-the-week nonsense you're pitching.

The ghetto is your 'hood of choice, liberal. Not to live there, of course, but to exploit for political gain, culling the ignorant.

Did you just throw up on your keyboard?
Sure reads like it with your primal squeal of a post.

Sorry sheepdip, if you see yourself in that post.

kerry is the perfect rep for the dems: snotty, spoiled, acquired wealth without working for it, flip-flopping, duplicitous elitist who can't even fess up to having had botox.

Kerry: I don't even know what (botox) is

Reporter: Your wife had it done two months ago and says she'll be going again.

ha ha ha. what shit. someone sticks a needle in your wife's face and you don't know anything about it?

.......

My keyboard is a finely tuned laser scalpel, vomit free despite my having to read renewed liberal idiocy every day.

enjoy your eve. Meyer has Chee-tos to share.

" My keyboard is a finely tuned laser scalpel"- Ha ha ha ha ha
Ah, such pomposity. Only macthed by this:
" No Real marxist really believes in freedcom and see how many "big words" i need to tell about it?"
Or this:
"the more dopey would be anarchs WAKE UP and see they;ve been suckered by the spicalist scam the better for every movement happening."
Or this:
"racism" is the least of your concerns, anti-obvious.
the sandnggs would've killed you too if you'd been in the WTC."
Or this:
" Pray to marx tonight that it's Bush and not me in the Oval Office. fallujuh would already be glowing dust."

Tell me, after elementary school, did you ever ascend to a higher (aside from your cracker barrel group therapy sessions of like minded, green teeth, rulers of the world) education level and learn to spell or construct rational structured sentences?

Son, you need to get out of your trailer park and visit a library.
Now go on like a good boy, do some reading and come on back.
In the mean time, I'll just clean a few of my rifles again in case I ever meet you in person.

Son, you need to get out of your trailer park and visit a library.
Now go on like a good boy, do some reading and come on back.
In the mean time, I'll just clean a few of my rifles again in case I ever meet you in person


Typical liberal: insults poor whites (trailer park) but treats blacks condescendingly, like pets.

1) Your political philosophies are a magnificent failure and are preached only by 1960s dinosaurs hiding in universities and believed by 20-year-old hippie know-nothings. The latter--if not completely brain dead--will wake up when he sees how much $$$ is really taken out of each paycheck for 'liberal compassion.'

2) All over the world people are awakening to the wonders of the free market and rejecting socialism (the people in nations that plan to survive).

3) Blame Israel or oil all you want: democracy is still coming to the middle east and there' s nothing you can do about it, short of joining Johnny Walker in prison.

4) You won't need to fire a shot from your rifles...unless you plan to shoot first.

5) I dig the library. Well read people have a much better chance of waking up from the liberal matrix. Maybe if you went more often you'd be better read, instead of better...red.

Since you frequent the library, upon which authors do you derive these wild assumptions? Just curious.

None of the comments so far have anything to do with the topic of oil depletion.

I understand the desire to respond to trolls like "cc", but perhaps it would be better use of this web-space to post comments on topic and ignore such posts.

If you wish to find out more information on the serious topic of peak oil, these are some of the online resources I found very useful.

http://GlobalPublicMedia.org
An excellent archive of audio and video recordings, many of which are on the topic of Peak Oil. Check out the recordings of Matt Simmons (a conservative Bush energy advisor), Colin Campbell (oil industry scientist) and Richard Heinberg (author of "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Society").

http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

http://PeakOil.net
Association for the Study of Peak Oil
Description: ASPO is a network of scientists, affiliated with European institutions and universities, having an interest in determining the date and impact of the peak and decline of the world’s production of oil and gas, due to resource constraints.

"Eating Fossil Fuels"
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil_summary.html

"Revealing Statements from a Bush Insider about Peak Oil and Natural Gas Depletion"
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/061203_simmons.html

http://MuseLetter.com
An online newsletter by Richard Heinberg, the author of "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Society".

Search Google for Peak Oil
http://peakoilaction.org/modules.php?name=Web_Links&l_op=visit&lid=9

Search Google News for "Peak Oil"
http://peakoilaction.org/modules.php?name=Web_Links&l_op=visit&lid=2

You're correct.

This is a critical issue and as a geologist among other disiplins is astounds me to see the following comments trotted forth.
' The earth is far from running out of oil and more oil is being discovered every day.'

To examine the actual amount of oil fields discovered versus the use is a troubling realization.

I read a piece that compared the use of this fuel to having at least 15 personal servants working for us and the rapidly rising prices tell us of things to come in the way of food and energy use.
This is aside from the ecological damage being wrought by its use.
Thank you for bringing this thread back on track. Forgive.

"I understand the desire to respond to trolls like "cc", but perhaps it would be better use of this web-space to post comments on topic and ignore such posts."

A troll has nothing relevant to say. That's not me, since I'll tell you straight up: the Peak oil "crisis" is more leftist bullshit, just like global warming.

THE WORLD HAS MORE OIL, NOT LESS By Alan Caruba

If you do an Internet search for "oil reserves", you get a ton of information, much of it announcements by various nations saying they have discovered vast potential new fields of crude oil and are, not surprisingly, eager to tap them.

Then why are being told that we have to cut back consumption? The answer is political, not geological. The most casual look at the UN Kyoto Climate Control Treaty reveals the economic devastation that would occur if this and other industrialized nations were forced to cut back to 1990 levels of energy use.

It should come as no surprise that Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and other environmental organizations are protesting the Clinton administration’s "loopholes" that would virtually exempt the US from the idiotic demands of the treaty’s final text; one that the US Senate is on record saying it would never ratify.

Economists warn that, given the provisions of the treaty, gasoline prices would rise significantly. Electricity costs would increase anywhere between 20 percent and 86 percent. The cost of natural gas would rise between 20 percent and 148 percent.

This is what Al Gore, advocates. In 1997, he flew to Japan during the treaty’s creation to express his support for it. The Drudge Report estimates his trip burned 439,500 gallons of fuel. Even if one were to ignore the questions about his truthfulness, his environmental dementia is such that, if he were elected, he would initiate a worldwide economic Depression.

Globally, we need more energy, not less. The good news is, if you factor in coal as the primary source of the generation of electricity, you’re actually looking at not just hundreds, but thousands of years of electrical power. Coal is so abundant it is measured in the thousands of years of use. Abundant electrical power will free Third World nations from their poverty. It will benefit the lives of millions who are denuding the forests of their nations for fuel to cook dinner!

But we’re told we’re running out of oil. Not true! In 1973, an oil field was discovered off the coast of Louisiana in a deep area of the Gulf of Mexico. By 1989, oil production had trickled down to a daily output of only 4,000 barrels. Then, to the surprise and delight of the PennzEnergy Company, the Eugene Island field began to pump 13,000 barrels a day. Geologists tested the new crude and discovered it was a completely different geological age than the original oil of ten years earlier!

Now petroleum scientists are beginning to believe there is a whole new oil supply streaming from a vast source many miles below the surface of the Earth. The ramifications of this are obvious. There is a lot of oil as yet undiscovered and untapped.

This phenomenon explains why Middle East oil reserves doubled since the 1980’s, currently estimated to be about two thirds of a trillion barrels. In his book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere", Cornell University professor emeritus, Thomas Gold, documents his theory that oil is manufactured deep in the earth under extreme pressure and heat. As it interacts with bacteria, it oozes up to the surface, appearing to be prehistoric, but actually "new" in geological terms. This challenges the theory that we are dependent on the decomposition of dinosaurs (fossil fuels) that has been the accepted wisdom. Oil may well come from another source than buried biomass.

The latest figures I could secure sets the "proven crude oil reserves" of the Middle East at about 686.4 thousand million barrels. Saudi Arabia sits on top of 26l.5 thousand million. Kuwait has 112.5 thousand million. The estimates of the untapped crude in Alaska are set at about 16 billion barrels. The area involved is one tenth of one percent of the entire area of the State! Are you really so worried about some caribou, grizzly bears, and rabbits that you aren’t willing to tap into a tiny part of that State?

On a Royal Dutch/Shell Group floating platform a hundred miles off the coast of Louisiana where oil production wasn’t even feasible a few years ago, there are estimates of 100 billion barrels of untapped crude oil. At this point, 40 billion barrels have already been discovered in deep waters worldwide from West Africa to Brazil to the Gulf of Mexico. In the Gulf of Mexico alone, production could rise at as much as 1.8 million barrels a day by 2001. This is double the 1995 level and roughly equal to the daily output of Kuwait.

So, do you still think we’re running out of oil? The simple arithmetic of oil production is that we keep finding more and more of it. The late economist, Julian Simon, predicted this in his book, The Resourceful Earth, written with Herman Kahn as a response to the lies of the Greens who have foisted the global warming hoax on us. Their objective is to reverse the advances of technology and life enhancing innovations that have marked the end of the last century and will continue into this new century IF we don’t fall victim to their lies.

The driving force behind these lies are the many environmental groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and others who specialize in selling you calendars of cuddly animals and beautiful mountains. They are afforded an umbrella by the United Nations whose bogus environmental program exists to attack capitalist nations that are currently destroying the biggest economic lie of all, that socialism works. It doesn’t.

Proof of this exists in the headlines of the past decade. The citizens of formerly socialist/communist nations are bringing down these governments. They are rebelling against Big Brother. It just happened in Yugoslavia. It began when the people of Poland threw off the grip of the Soviet communists. That led to the Soviet meltdown. Now in socialist England and other European nations, truckers and drivers literally bring their nations to a stop as they protest the high taxes imposed on gasoline and oil. What are they saying? Let the marketplace determine price, not governments. Let’s begin, right now, to begin extracting the vast, know reserves the United States has in Alaska and offshore. Let’s reduce our insane dependency on Middle East oil.

My friend, Robert L. Bradley, Jr. is a great exponent of Julian Simon’s views, having picked up the torch when the economist passed on in 1998. His new book, "Julian Simon and the Triumph of Energy Sustainability" ($15, Institute for Energy Research, 6219 Olympia, Houston, TX 77057) puts the skids to all the crisis talk and lies the Greens have told you about "sustainability." That is a Green code word for shutting down any progress toward providing even more abundant (and needed) energy for a world that is being brought together by the Internet and other means of communication and transportation.

"All environmental indicators concerning the use of hydrocarbons—whether they involve land use, spillage, wastage or combustion—are demonstrating positive trends and in many cases exceeding expectations," says Bradley. "Consumers are embracing multiple new uses of energy in transportation and stationary markets. Risk management opportunities and mass customization of energy products are multiplying. Safety and productivity are improving throughout these industries. All these trends appear to be open-ended."

That’s how the prospects for more oil stand now, open-ended. We are going to find even more oil in this decade and beyond. We are likely to confirm the theory that billions of barrels exist, waiting to ooze up to the surface where it can be accessed for future generations.

© Warning SIgns, 2000

Congatulations CC

Your new lifetime membership in the Flat Earth Society is now processed and on it's way to you. As a member you will get these fine benefits:

>Loads of junk science that you can use to confuse your friends and severely damage young people.
>A life time supply of the soon-to-be-released Soylent Green, made by real 'farmers' on real 'farms' in the industrialized tornado bowls of the globally warmed midwest
>Enough CO2, NO2 and particulate matter to give you asthma, lung cancer, and you and your spawning mate transgenic mutations that may or may not survive.

The Flat Earth Society is proud , cc, to call you one of our own.

Sponsored by ExxonMobil, the company that wants you to starve, get dengue fever, and never have a vacation in the South Sea islands (they're disappearing!). We're bringing the polar ice caps to you!

"You hate values (of any kind) and consider the teachings of Christ averse to whatever flavor-of-the-week nonsense you're pitching."

In addition to Christ, what other fairy tales do you believe in?

The Easter Bunny? Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy? The official government explanation of what happened on 9/11/01?

You're nuttier than Rush Limbaugh on an Oxycontin binge!

I would like to respond to a few comments by cc.

----------------------------------------------------
cc submitted:
"the Peak oil "crisis" is more leftist bullshit, just like global warming. "
----------------------------------------------------
One of the most credible experts in The End of Suburbia is Matthew Simmons, CEO of the world’s largest Energy Investment Bank, member of the CFR, advisor to Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group and a died-in-the-wool Republican. He is quite a distance from "left". And he claims we are headed for a great crisis in energy.

visit http://www.simmonsco-intl.com
----------------------------------------------------
cc submitted:
"If you do an Internet search for "oil reserves", you get a ton of information, much of it announcements by various nations saying they have discovered vast potential new fields of crude oil and are, not surprisingly, eager to tap them. "
----------------------------------------------------
From the Wilderness - March 17, 2004
Major oil discoveries have declined every year so that 2003 saw no new field over 500 million barrels, and in 2001 and 2002 the top ten non-state oil companies spent more on exploration than they discovered in value, a new and alarming record.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031704_two_planets.html

----------------------------------------------------
cc submitted:
Quoted from article:
"Economists warn that, given the..."
----------------------------------------------------
Economists understand economies. Generally, they don't understand geology. And nature bats last, sorry.

----------------------------------------------------
cc submitted:
" there is a whole new oil supply streaming from a vast source many miles below the surface of the Earth"
----------------------------------------------------
While shooting The End of Suburbia I had the opportunity to talk to a woman whose family operated what is arguably the oldest oil field in North America, in Petrolia, Ontario. It has been pumping for 150 years. It is almost dead. They pump out a lot of water now. If oil replenished itself, these wells would still be pumping oil. And if you consider that they have "only" been pumping for 150 years, what happened to all the oil that built up over the previous 10,000 years. Petrolia should have been bleeding oil, according to abiotic oil theory. If the earth *can* replenish the oil supply, it had better get cracking, 'cause we can't wait another 10,000 years.
----------------------------------------------------
cc submitted:
"his phenomenon explains why Middle East oil reserves doubled since the 1980’s"
----------------------------------------------------
MIddle East reserves have more likely doubled because of OPEC rules that dictate the amount of oil that can be produced based on a country's reserves. If you say you have more oil, you can export more oil.
"The books on oil have been as cooked as the books at Enron" - Michael C. Ruppert

----------
I am amused by cc's attempt to turn this discussion into a Dems vs. Rep argument. This is exactly the behaviour that The End of Suburbia predicts. When TSHTF, politcal affiliations won't mean much.

I can only conclude that cc is a paid shill or a "moran". Let him stay in his/her consensus trance.

.
------Hello to barry and all my socialist “friends.”

-------the evil cc here.

------Barry, to my “consensus believing self” you’re docugloomentary is about as relevant as Hal Lindsey and his 1970 doom tome “The Late Great Planet Earth.” You shot yourself in the foot with that crack at the end of your post about “moran” as it exposes you as the typical ad hominem liberal.

------Frankly, I don’t think whoever made this documentary is “a big enough phish” to warrant their very own paid debunker/shill, so don’t flatter yourself.
----------------------------------------------------
One of the most credible experts in The End of Suburbia is Matthew Simmons, CEO of the world’s largest Energy Investment Bank, member of the CFR, advisor to Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group and a died-in-the-wool Republican. He is quite a distance from "left". And he claims we are headed for a great crisis in energy.

------According to democRATS, commies, socialists etc., Republicans are wrong on just about every issue. But here you’ve found one who agrees with your hype and suddenly the guy is credible. I wonder if Simmons has any personal financial stake in agreeing with dire predictions? Kind of the way umbrella salesmen always seem to think it’s about to rain.
Also, later in your counterpoint you make light of the notion that this is a “Dem vs. Rep” issue, yet here it’s very important that this guy’s a Republican.
----------------------------------------------------
From the Wilderness - March 17, 2004
Major oil discoveries have declined every year so that 2003 saw no new field over 500 million barrels, and in 2001 and 2002 the top ten non-state oil companies spent more on exploration than they discovered in value, a new and alarming record.

-------Once again, let’s all remember one of the major reasons there are “no new fields” is liberal eco-idiots thwarting the exploration and drilling of potential new oil reserves. Sixteen billion barrels are waiting under 1 percent of 1 percent of an icy wilderness park in Alaska. “No,” say the hippies, “Can’t drill there.” Offshore oil rigs are also verboten by greens.
Mexico has billions of barrels of untapped oil, except that its resources are nationalized (good ol’ socialism!) and therefore its citizens live in poverty or sneak to the USA to pick lettuce.

---------------------------------------------------
cc submitted:
Quoted from article:
"Economists warn that, given the..."
----------------------------------------------------
Economists understand economies. Generally, they don't understand geology. And nature bats last, sorry.

-----------Economics and geology: I don’t think liberals understand either. And no one is more divorced from the reality of nature than greens. Anyone who calls the earth “fragile” is a dope.
----------------------------------------------------
cc submitted:
" there is a whole new oil supply streaming from a vast source many miles below the surface of the Earth"
----------------------------------------------------
While shooting The End of Suburbia I had the opportunity to talk to a woman whose family operated what is arguably the oldest oil field in North America, in Petrolia, Ontario. It has been pumping for 150 years. It is almost dead. They pump out a lot of water now. If oil replenished itself, these wells would still be pumping oil. And if you consider that they have "only" been pumping for 150 years, what happened to all the oil that built up over the previous 10,000 years. Petrolia should have been bleeding oil, according to abiotic oil theory. If the earth *can* replenish the oil supply, it had better get cracking, 'cause we can't wait another 10,000 years.
----------------------------------------------------
-------Like the global warming kooks, you’d rather destroy whole economies based on a THEORY. How charming. You’re the one that brought out the ridiculous word “replenish.” The sentence merely talks of a new DISCOVERY of an oil supply that was there ALL ALONG, not oil magically regenerating. Your premise is faulty.

cc submitted:
"his phenomenon explains why Middle East oil reserves doubled since the 1980’s"
----------------------------------------------------
MIddle East reserves have more likely doubled because of OPEC rules that dictate the amount of oil that can be produced based on a country's reserves. If you say you have more oil, you can export more oil.
"The books on oil have been as cooked as the books at Enron" - Michael C. Ruppert

------Wait now. Didn’t you already claim…. “Economists understand economies. Generally, they don't understand geology.” So now in order to justify good news from OPEC you have to go to the very “cooked books” you denounce. Nature farts last. Sorry.

I am amused by cc's attempt to turn this discussion into a Dems vs. Rep argument. This is exactly the behaviour that The End of Suburbia predicts. When TSHTF, politcal affiliations won't mean much.

--------“Dems vs. Rep” is the political model in the USA. It’s idiot democRATS that vote for stupid shit like the kyoto treaty, more socialist/nanny-state garbage and believe global warming is real, while R’s have better sense.

I can only conclude that cc is a paid shill or a "moran". Let him stay in his/her consensus trance.

-------Naturally, neither is the case, but for a moment let’s entertain your Chicken Little predictions.

------What should people do if you’re right? Worry about it? Buy your lousy DVD or buy into the bullshit buzzword the left likes to toss around: “sustainability?”

-------When the oil runs out, it runs out. It won’t happen for another 120 years at least. Let’s also remember that we have only a few THOUSAND years of coal on standby as well as nuclear power (if only greens would allow it).

--------Because you call this one-sided, straight-to-video borefest a "documentary" doesn't mean it's automatically the truth, or was even made with factual evidence.

-------time to fire up the SUV.

Or my children's lfetime. There's enough oil still underground to last at least another 300 years (and that's including predicted economic growth).

Combine this with the fact that energy companies are heavily investing already in renewable energy tehnologies and it's obvious that energy shortages will never bea problem.

Too bad for the hippy-anarchist soap-dodgers, we're not going back to hunter-gathering at all.

"There's enough oil still underground to last at least another 300 years (and that's including predicted economic growth)."

Unsubstantiated Allegation
For more on logic at your level, try reading "Logic for Dummies."

"learn to spell or construct rational structured sentences?
"

Tell me that sheepdog of all people is NOT criticizing ANYONE for awful spelling and sentence structure.

Not the same sheepdog who has taken typos and bad grammar to a whole new level.

Must be those darned WTO chemtrails.

Compaired to you, even a monkey looks good.

Don't compare me to that ignorant racist scumbag!

Geologists and analysts have been saying for some time that estimates of global oil reserves may be dangerously exaggerated. If you take oil prices currently at around US$37 a barrel, the highest for nearly 15 years, US petrol prices at record levels and you add terrorist attacks and diminishing supplies, you have a recipe for inflation and economic slowdown. The question of reserves becomes a much more important factor.

Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that internal documents and other data indicated that Shell had over estimated its proven oil reserves in Oman by as much as 40 per cent. But that seems to have been done because everyone hoped that the latest drilling techniques would reach more deposits than in the past and merit upgrading the estimates of reserves.

The Oman estimates were based on assessments made in May 2000 by a senior Shell executive who was subsequently fired. He was among several executives who were said to have known about the unrealistic estimates of reserves and to have done nothing about it.

If the exaggeration is confirmed, the estimate of recoverable oil will have to be lowered. That is bad news for Oman, which claims reserves of 5.4bn barrels and is heavily dependent on oil and gas exports but it is also bad news for the world as a whole.

As the world's natural resources shrink and global warming changes the environment, competition for unimpeded access to them has intensified and will continue to do so. About four-fifths of the world's known oil reserves lie in politically unstable or contested regions.

Hey, you government spook.

How's the weather over there in South Carolona?

P.S.: What's with those rubber duckies on top of your computer?

We see you, KOBE HQ.

Is it going to end soon? I can hardly wait to see it gone. That will mark the formal repeal of the 1950's. Good riddance - to the fifties and to suburbia.

This is a serious problem, it's not a joke or a distant prospect but something that will hit us soon and will change our way of life forever.

Oil isn't just the stuff you fill your SUV with, it's also the food on your table, it heats,lights and cools your home,it freezes your food so it doesn't spoil,it makes our drugs, it's plastics, clothing, it's fertilizer,pestisides the raw material for millons of products and it makes it possible to feed billions of people.

As petrolium declines, expect the cost of everything to rise and keep rising, food will become scarcer, transportation will decline, aircraft other than military will stop flying.
What is it about the word 'fossil fuel' that so many people are unable to understand?

It's a FINITE resource, it will decline and apparently sooner than we expected thanks to years of uncontrolled population growth and the corrisponding growth in our dependance upon petrolioum to meet our ever growing needs for energy and raw material.

Our economy will be devastated and world population will decline as our ability to house, feed and control our home environment declines.
Eventualy billions of people will literaly be freezing and starving in the dark.

common guys, get serious about this subject, it's not a soap opera or a play but real life we are or should be discussing here.

maybe by the time oil is scarce they'll let us grow hemp.
in a mag. an article shows a nuclear airplane, boon for trrists? what about zepellins, dirigibles?
coal is #1 for elect.generation..mandatory waste incinerators for power production,..if there is waste to burn,hehe..buy scooter stocks/build igloos/backyard gardens/underground housing or rammed earth..plastics phased out, gasmowers banned..kids walk 20mi to school, horse manure crews to clean roads, outhouses make comeback & bwtv-9in., burlap fashion shows, no more cheetos--yikes!!

Sponsored by ExxonMobil, the company that wants you to starve, get dengue fever, and never have a vacation in the South Sea islands (they're disappearing!). We're bringing the polar ice caps to you!

>>>> UNSUBSTANTIATED CHICKEN LITTLE SOCIALIST BULLSHIT. QUICK! HELP! WHERE'S THAT LOGICAL PHALLUS GUY WITH HIS CUT-N-PASTE?!

"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst."
-- Thomas Hardy

Petroleum geologists have known for 50 years that global oil production would "peak" and begin its inevitable decline within a decade of the year 2000. Moreover, no renewable energy systems have the potential to generate more than a fraction of the power now being generated by fossil fuels.

In short, the transition to declining energy availability signals a transition in civilization as we know it.
http://dieoff.org/

>There is also a lot of oil that can be pumped from existing reserves at higher cost - discoveries that are remote - fields that need workovers or stimulation, etc.<

Yes and when it take a gallon of gas to get ( pump/ recover/develop) a gallon of gas ofter with the ruination of the environment, you have a zero sum gain.

To your simple understanding, $1 of fuel to recover $1 fuel.

Wondering what dopey arguments leftists will be using 100 years from now, after global warming catastrophes never took place and there's plenty of fuels of which oil is only one?

Maybe they can retread the big scare of 1975 and warn the earth is cooling.

your strange and biased opinions have little basis to the subject.
shoo!

Not the thing about San Fran, but about energy prices.

There are a lot of different energy sources, and, the number of alternative energy initiatives continues to rise. Don't forget the value of conservation.

In the energy crisis of the 1970s, a lot of conservation practices became popular -- better windows, insulation, better car engines, lighter cars. Later, with rising electricity costs, the Energy Star program promoted some (minor) level of increased efficiency.

These inventions don't just happen. They are ideas that were developed before the crisis, by scientists and engineers consciously trying to figure out how to save energy.

Focusing primarily on extraction of resources isn't as imaginative as figuring out how to save energy, and work toward the ideal of machines that don't waste energy as heat and noise.

There is no renewable energy source that can replace the amount of energy we are obtaining from fossil fuels today. I would recommend reading "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Society", by Richard Heinberg, where it makes it clear.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0865714827

Furthermore, even if we could replace our energy needs with renewable energy, it would allow us to continue on the path of destruction of our biosphere.

From www.foundation.bw/TheWorldDoesNotNeed.htm Mankind is using so much energy (current solar energy plus the stored energy of fossil fuel) that it is destroying the biosphere. For human beings to survive, and for the biosphere to survive in a condition similar to that in which mankind evolved, it is necessary for mankind’s use of energy to drop dramatically. In other words, if an energy source (e.g., nuclear fusion) could be found to replace fossil fuels, the demise of the planet would be assured. The biosphere cannot continue with the present high rate of energy use. That high rate of energy use is causing mass species extinction, and is destroying the biosphere. The survival of mankind and the biosphere is totally dependent on mankind’s reducing the level of energy utilization back to that level at which the biosphere and mankind evolved.

So what is to be done? All of the industrial nations are seeking to consume fossil fuels as rapidly as possible, and they are also eagerly and urgently seeking alternative energy sources, despite the fact that this high level of energy use is destroying life on the planet. I have two points. First, as I argued in Can America Survive?, it is very unlikely that mankind will find any energy source to replace the energy of fossil fuels. Second, even if it did, to continue to use energy at the current rate would continue the mass species extinction and destroy the biosphere. Such a discovery (although not likely in my view) would sound the death knell for the planet and seal its doom.

Although renewable energy will certainly be used more in the future, the only significant solution to limit the turmoil and suffering that will occur when the end of cheap oil arrives is to live with less energy. This would mean the end of the automobile and the end of highly consumptive lifestyles. We will get there no matter which path we choose, but if take that path sooner rather than when there is no other choice, it will mean less destruction to the environment and less suffering.

Anyone referring to alternative energy sources as inadequate is crazy, or illinformed. the ocean, sun, wind, etc. provide ++energy, we just need to deal with it in an everyday thing. Passive effects + more desedentation of folks

I think the point was that the overall level of energy consumption is untenable.

It feels alarmist to me, but think there's some truth in there. Solar panels on the homes really don't produce enough electricity to power more than a few appliances, and, there's also the energy required to create the solar panels in the first place. Tidal and wind are better, and more cost effective, but, again, not available everywhere.

"In the United States, humankind is already managing and using more than half of all the solar energy captured by photosynthesis. Yet even this is insufficient to our needs, and we are actually using nearly three times that much energy, or about 40% more energy than is captured by all plants in the United States. This rate is made possible only because we are temporarily drawing upon stored fossil energy. We are approaching the end of the petroleum era, and other fossil fuels are not inexhaustible. Moreover, the very use of these fossil fuels, plus erosion and other misuse of our natural resources, are reducing the carrying capacity of our ecosystem."

http://www.dieoff.com/page136.htm

So that puts the energy use in perspective. Although we can also get energy from wind, geothermal (not really renewable) and tidal etc., it seems unlikely even in combination that we could ever continue the same amount of energy use. And it takes a long time and a lot of energy input to build up the infrastructure for anything on this scale. Since that process hasn't begun in earnest yet, it seems like it may come too late to avoid a "catastrophic dislocation in the supply of energy" (in the words of Michael Meacher, former UK environment minister in an interview I did with him in February) if the predictions by Cambell, Deffeyes etc are anywhere close to the actual outcome. The alternative fossil fuels don't really provide an easy solution. In all of this you need to know the Energy Returned On Energy Invested ratio. And if like shale oil or photovoltaic cells this ratio is very low, or even below one, then the energy source is useless except perhaps in some niche applications (like phovoltaics which are good at redistributing energy in particular ways, but probably don't strictly create much energy over their lifetime once you subtract the energy invested).

There may be partial solutions - they will largely be lifestyle based, and fairly extreme. Permaculture, especially David Holmgren's version of it, looks specifically at this problem of cultural changes fit for a period of energy decline, and he has a practical way of looking at the issue, and I recommend his lates book available here: www.holmgren.com.au

None of the "conservation" efforts will be worth much as the population increases.